In a letter to the chairs of the California Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2, which will take up state funding for the CSU on April 3, 36 Assembly members added their names to a letter calling for CSU funding to be a “top budget priority” in the 2018-19 state budget that begins July 1.

In one of California’s best fiscal years ever, it’s time to fund the CSU. That is the message faculty and students are bringing to CSU campuses and the Capitol where the 2018-19 State Budget is being hammered out.

The CSU budget needs and deserves additional state funding this fiscal year, a message CFA will be taking to a state Senate Budget Subcommittee on March 15 at the State Capitol.

Faculty and student voices are needed to help drive home the message that lawmakers need to reinvest in the People’s University. Real stories from those most impacted by budget decisions – our underrepresented students and their teachers – can make a lasting impression, and impact, on policymakers.

CFA leaders will make the case for additional state funding for the California State University to lawmakers during a budget hearing in Sacramento next week.

The Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Education Finance, chaired by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, will look over Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed 2018-19 budget, as well as discuss implications for the CSU, UC, and Community College systems.

At Governor Brown’s news conference on his 2018-19 state budget plan last week, a reporter asked him about the CFA PopUp Art Installation outside calling for more funding to admit 18,000 more qualified students to the CSU.

The California Faculty Association and the California State University administration have issued the following joint statement:

“By providing high-quality, affordable public higher education, the California State University has the unique ability to boost the prospects of increased levels of social mobility for the residents of California. A college degree has changed the lives of nearly 3.4 million CSU alumni who are leading our state’s industries from agriculture to technology and every field in between.

CFA sent the following Open Letter to CSU Chancellor Timothy White and CSU Trustees in advance of the release on January 10, 2018 of Governor Brown’s 2018-19 State Budget plan .CFA calls on CSU leaders to be stronger in fighting to keep the CSU—the People’s University—public and open to all qualified Californians.

The time has come for the state of California to end the long, slow process of dismantling public higher education. For decades, state disinvestment from the California State University has harmed students and it has harmed our state. We have too few Californians with college degrees.

The CSU is turning away eligible students who were promised a place in college in California’s Master Plan for Higher Education. More than 31,000 students were denied admission this year, with more students likely to be excluded in the future.

Now, this disinvestment is poised to continue, both in the Governor’s budget proposal to be released this month and in the budget request that the CSU Trustees submitted to the governor.